


and the world was gone

by yinngoh



Series: Simpler Days [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Adoption, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Demons, Gen, M/M, Pixies, Slow Build, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yinngoh/pseuds/yinngoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a demon, years could pass in a blink of an eye to Oikawa, but even so with neither purpose nor any real connections, Oikawa finds himself merely existing in a world he's probably outdated for.</p><p>OR</p><p>Oikawa is a bored-asf demon who's sick of blending into the crowd and increasing his already-obscene wealth and decides to go back to a time when things were much simpler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Start Again

**Author's Note:**

> AN: seriously this is the product of boredom at work and also a very random idea. don't expect any awesome writing or plotline and don't be surprised if it doesnt make sense either... i am literally writing this on sticky notes at work and then just typing them up when i get home lel no beta-ing or anything tbh.
> 
> PS. expect lots of time-hopping. rating will change (may go up to E)  
> inspo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMhfJS8HBKM
> 
> Disclaimer: i don't own the characters, just the terrible idea

Age 4 -------------------------------

Running one hand through his hair, and the other tugging at his tie, Karyu sighed as he stretched a crick out of his neck after a long day of work.  
  


_God, how are people expected to do this for their entire life?_ He thought. As he took his time walking home, Karyu’s eyes remained clear and sharp despite his fatigue.  
  


Voices to his left caught his attention and Karyu glanced over at the small playground in his neighbourhood. There were a few kids there, but parents were already starting to usher most back home for the night.  
  


There was one scruffy kid, however, who was still standing on his own holding a ball that was almost larger than his head. Quirking a brow, Karyu made his way over – anything to relieve his current boredom.  
  


His eye level dropped smoothly as he walked, unnoticed, up to the boy. “Hey, whatcha got there?”  
  


A stern face turned his way and eyes sized him up for a second before turning his body to face Karyu. “It’s a volleyball. You know how to play?”  
  


Karyu frowned, “no, can you teach me?”  
  


Smiling, the other boy replied, “sure.”  
  


* * *

  
“I haven’t seen you here before, what school do you go to?”  
  


Karyu glanced at the boy lying next to him, tired after playing together for the last hour. “I just moved here. I’m not sure yet.”  
  


               “Well, I go to the one just behind this block. Maybe I’ll see you there.”  
  


Before he could open his mouth to reply, both boys were distracted by a woman’s voice calling out. “That’s my mum,” the boy – Iwaizumi Hajime – said. He smiled again, “thanks for playing with me, Tooru.”  
  


Grinning cheekily he replied, “no problem, Iwa-chan.”  
  


Said boy shot him an unimpressed look but only shook his head and strode off to his mother, waving behind his back at his new friend.  
  


When the pair finally disappeared from his line of sight, Karyu heaved himself out and took a moment to shake his limbs out. He groaned, snatching his briefcase that he’d stashed in some nearby bushes earlier. De-aging was always a pain in his limbs.  
  


* * *

  
“I’m really sorry, boss!” Karyu opened his eyes, hands still clapped together in front of his face in a pleading position as he caught his superior’s gaze. “I know we’re in a busy time—”  
  


His boss stiffened for a second before blinking rapidly and cutting Karyu off with a dismissive wave. “No, no, I understand. You have your duties as their only son in these situations after all.”  
  


Outwardly smiling in relief, Karyu wanted to roll his eyes at how easily he influenced his boss’ reaction to his sudden resignation. He bowed curtly and left the office.  
  


* * *

  
Gazing absentmindedly at the kindergarten, Karyu frowned as he weighed his options. _Probably should’ve thought about this before I quit…_ he sighed and made his way home.  
  


_Making a family would be too hard to maintain, even for me… Living alone would’ve been an option if only I was a_ teenager _at least!_ Karyu wanted to growl in frustration, but was side-tracked by a couple that looked… like new neighbours.  
  


A disinterested gaze watched the smiling couple, carrying boxes into their new home; eyes narrowing at the woman’s air of disappointment and the contradicting light in her eyes. Putting on a charming smile, Karyu sauntered over. “Hello! I’m Karyu Tooru, your neighbour.”  
  


The couple both put down their respective boxes and hastily wiped their hands before bowing and shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you, Karyu-san! I’m Oikawa Ryudo, and this is my wife, Rika.” The woman beside him smiled and nodded.  
  


               “The pleasure is mine. You two look very young; just married?” Karyu jested lightly. The couple both blinked before smiling happily at his statement.  
  


               “Two years, actually,” the man said.  
  


               “Oh! And no children yet?” Karyu kept his tone light, not wanting the couple to feel interrogated or pressured by a ‘stranger’. His gaze locked onto the woman, whose expression was momentarily overcome with sadness.  
  


Seems like her husband knew it too as he wrapped an arm around her waist comfortingly. “No… we’ve actually moved here to visit the orphanage nearby actually, and to be closer to the kindergarten here as Rika received a job offer to teach there.”  
  


Schooling his face into a proper mix of shocked and apologetic, “oh I apologize for my rudeness! I shouldn’t have—”  
  


               “No, it’s alright, Karyu-san,” the woman cut in, smiling gently at him. “I love children, and even if they’re not my own blood, I would never love them any different.”  
  


Karyu smiled, “then you are a very strong woman, Oikawa-san.” He glanced surreptiously at his watch, “well, I’d better let you two get adjusted. Did you need any help with your boxes?”  
  


The other man waved flippantly, “no need, Karyu-san. Thank you for your offer though.”  
  


               “Well at least let me take you two out to dinner sometime then. Get to know each other. We’ll be seeing each other often from now on anyways,” he grinned.  
  


The couple grudgingly accepted after much insistence on Karyu’s part. They all bowed politely as Karyu excused himself. _An orphanage and a kindergarten teacher… Seeing each other more often indeed. But first…_  
  


* * *

__  
Slipping in and fabricating his presence in the orphanage was easy enough, despite the fact that said orphanage didn’t actually care for that many children. He should probably feel bad for being out to steal one of these kid’s chances of being with an actual family but… he didn’t. Anyway, it wasn’t like the orphanage was all that bad either.  
  


               “Kids! Come on now,” one of the matrons came into the room everyone was playing in. “There’s a couple here to see you.  
  


Karyu glanced around interested at the children’s various reactions. There were quite a mix; from interested, excited, to grumpy, resigned, unsure. He ran a hand through his chocolate locks and put on his innocently cute look.

 

* * *

  
“And what’s your name, darling” Rika asked as her attention was diverted to a shy boy standing just at the edge of her peripheral vision.  
  


The boy smiled slowly, as if unsure how to respond, before she watched her husband hook his hands around the kid’s torso and pulled him up, up, up and onto his shoulders. The child had made a surprised sound and now sat securely on her husband’s shoulders with a dazed expression that had Rika suppressing a giggle.  
  


Watching her husband getting the boy to open up a bit and speak to him, Rika’s expression melted into wistful longing that wasn’t missed by said husband. She snapped out of the momentary daze when she heard her husband calling her name.  
  


               “—is my wife, Tooru-kun. Do you want to say hello?”  
  


Said boy fidgeted shyly before blinking up at Rika from under long lashes. “Nice to meet you, Oikawa-san,” he greeted her carefully. She smiled and gently took his hands in hers, returning the greeting cheerfully, and was rewarded by the boy’s bright smile.  
  


Rika glanced past the boy at her husband, and that one look had Ryudo curling his lips in understanding and amusement.  
  


* * *

 

It wasn’t surprising that after all the stress, work and excitement they’d had today that Tooru had fallen asleep before they’d even taken their first step out of the orphanage.  
  


Unlocking the door to their apartment, Rika felt Tooru stirring against her chest, where she had been carrying him against her side. She smiled fondly and resisted the urge to coo at how cutely the boy blinked his eyes blearily at the unknown place they were in.  
  


Seeing him more awake and pushing against her shoulder to look around curiously, Rika slowly crouched down and let him walk on his own.  
  


               “Tooru-kun,” her husband’s voice caught both their attentions. Ryudo smiled at the two of them as he, too, knelt down beside the boy. “This is your new home. _Our_ home.  
  


* * *

 

As he lay in between his… _parents_ , Tooru had to admit things had gone much smoother than he’d originally imagined. Thinking back to Ryudo, his _father’s_ words; “Oikawa Tooru. That’s your name now, son. Of course, you can still go just as Tooru if you’d prefer. Whichever you prefer.”  
  


The man had smiled openly at him. Tooru was amazed at how open-minded this couple was still stuck in old ways and thinking himself. He’d blinked up at the couple after that and asked to be taught how to write the characters to ‘Oikawa’.  
  


They’d glanced at each other and happily wrote out the kanji for him. Beside it, he had carefully picked up the pen and written his own name – being careful to imitate a child’s scrawl – to make the characters 及川徹.  
  


As he’d looked at the characters, his new parent’s commenting at how well they fit, he found himself agreeing silently, smiling a smile that was only half an act. 

 

* * *

  
“Are you sure you want to start so quickly? We won’t mind if you need to take some time to adjust to being with us first, Tooru,” his mother fretted, zipping up a new randoseru backpack that they’d bought over the weekend.  
  


               “Yes, mama,” he’d replied, smiling. It had come surprisingly easy to him to call his ‘parents’ mama and papa. Then again, he’d kind of always wanted to try using the words, but never had any reason to until now. He just hoped it wouldn’t become a habit in the future when he would need to start calling them mother and father, or at least mum and dad.  
  


As a demon, he didn’t have something like parents. Sure, he was aware that demons could procreate, but it was rare and most demons would usually just manifest every so often. He wasn’t sure if there was any particular reason that caused one to come into being though.  
  


They were probably the most different to any other supernatural creature in existence. Not just in their existence, but also in life span. Demons were as close as you could get to immortal. Oh, they could die, but not of old age or diseases at least. But their bodies could definitely take damage just like anyone else.  
  


And ever since the last big supernatural dispute, most species’ had either been wiped out, or eventually died out due to how hard it generally was for them to have offspring, as compared to humans who seemed to just keep multiplying exponentially every day.  
  


Safe to say that other than himself, Tooru had not seen another supernatural creature for the past few centuries.  
  


Despite the fact that even among other supernatural beings, demons were never really liked, he’d still enjoyed the company of them over humans as at least they were able to relate to one another far more than any imaginative human could.  
  


But maybe this new start could be a good chance for him to start living a bit more again, he thought as he looked from his parents’ smiling faces to the kindergarten in front of him slowly filling with children. One, in particular, which caused him to break into a grin.


	2. Grade School - Age 8

“Ne, Iwa-chan,” he whined after the young boy dashing off ahead of him. “Can’t we just do something else? You haven’t caught one beetle today and it’s so hot out and do you know how long it takes to clean all this dirt off every time?”  
  


Iwaizumi rolled his eyes at his over-dramatic best friend, Oikawa Tooru. How they ended up so close was beyond not only their parents, but him too. “What do _you_ want to do then, huh, idiokawa?” He smirked when the other boy huffed at his butchered name.  
  


               “I don’t know. Can’t we just stay at home—”  
  


               “Boring!” Iwaizumi cut him off. “We’re finally on holidays and you want to stay inside?”  
  


Throwing his hands up, Oikawa groused, “fine! Let’s… let’s play some volleyball then.”  
  


               “Volleyball?”  
  


Oikawa lit up, “yeah, remember we saw it on TV the other day? It looks pretty cool. And I’m sure mum mentioned she used to play too.. Ah! I’m gonna see if she has a volleyball we can play with!” and with that he was gone, Iwaizumi left standing with his mouth half-open, unable to even get a word in.  
  


Huffing in fond exasperation, Iwaizumi waited for Oikawa to return, mother in tow, and they spent the rest of the afternoon clumsily trying to serve and pass the volleyball to each other whilst aunty directed them and stifled laughs at their less-than-finer moments.  
  


* * *

  
“Hi hi~ I’m Oikawa Tooru from class 3-1!” he waved and flashed a charming smile that had the other males of the volleyball team merely raising their brows impassively; some murming that he was such a show-off.  
  


               “Iwaizumi Hajime, also class 3-1,” came the familiar voice beside Oikawa. After spending their holidays either catching beetles with Iwaizumi or playing volleyball together in their backyards, Oikawa had managed to convince Iwaizumi into joining their school’s volleyball team.  
  


It was a good thing too, because in this younger body he was starting to feel antsy and needing to _do something_ all the time. The power of youth, who knew?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most of the chapters are gonna be pretty short until we get till about present time (aka 18yo)


	3. Grade School - Age 12

“—ou’re new captain is Oikawa Tooru,” announced the coach, motioning for Oikawa to step up. A huge smile split Oikawa’s face as he glanced over once at Iwaizumi – who rolled his eyes but smiled proudly anyway – before going to stand beside the coach, who continued to announce their vice-captain for the new year – a middle blocker who had a good eye for picking out their opponent’s weaknesses and attack patterns.

Then, they moved to introductions of new members. Oikawa watched, only half-paying attention, and thought about how young they all were. Although oddly enough, having spent almost a decade as a ‘normal human child’ seemed to have gotten Oikawa to realize just how much he’s starting acting like a normal human child sometimes too.

If not for the troublesome fact that he had to continuously remember to ‘grow’ every now and then and also go through puberty, he might’ve fooled even himself into thinking that everything before this was just an elaborate dream.

Speaking of, puberty was such a pain. He never realized how easy everything was as a child until he had to put himself through puberty and all the sexual frustration that came with it. Not to mention the fact that it was so much harder to control his own body?! Come on, he was a centuries-old demon for god’s sake! Why was he blushing like damn virgin and popping a boner every time he so much as looks at a girl in a short skirt or a guy pulling off his shirt after PE?!

If only one could death-glare their boner away… that would’ve helped save him so much embarrassment. He still felt mortified every time he remembered the day his dad had found him struggling with such a problem, and good ol’ dad actually took it upon himself to teach his ‘growing up’ son how to… ‘take care’ of the problem. It was the one and only time in his life that a human had actually made him want to disappear out of shame.

Volleyball had turned out to be a surprising passion for him though. As demons’ abilities lied more in the ‘magical’ aspects rather than inherent physical prowess – like vampires or werewolves – it was nice for him to actually move, exert his strength and stamina. The sport had given him a rush that he had forgotten many decades ago.

It was a bonus to know that when he won, it was because he was good, not because he had an advantage – then again, he supposed his quick mind was something of an advantage over the other… children, really.

Glancing over to his right, Oikawa caught the eyes of his ‘childhood friend’, Iwaizumi Hajime. Who knew he would actually find himself so attached to a human child, of all people?

Despite his gruff image, Iwaizumi often acted the more mature of the two of them. It didn’t help that his parents and sister had even joked that they would be “very happy if Iwaizumi-kun would ever take our useless Tooru as his bride”. Since he was technically still a child, he’d had to look away to hide the blush that went all the way up to the tip of his ears at the embarrassing words of his family, and the implications they probably weren’t thinking about.

His ‘sister’ was technically more like his cousin. His father’s brother and sister-in-law had gotten into an unfortunate accident, leaving their only daughter an orphan. Oikawa wasn’t surprised in the least when his parents had told him they would be adopting her into their family.

It was more of a formality than anything else, really. They had just over a decade of an age difference between them already but she needed a guardian because she had still been underage at the time.

“—oi, Idiokawa!” Iwaizumi’s voice cut through his reminiscing. “Let’s practice our combos,” said the boy once he had Oikawa’s attention, holding up a ball. Behind him, Oikawa realized that everyone had either begun warming up, or practicing in pairs or groups.

“Okay, Iwa-chan!” he grinned at the scowl on his friend’s face. As they walked to a free space in the gym, Oikawa spoke again, “oh Iwa-chan, I’ve been wanting to try doing some jump serves; will you practice with me?”

“Sure. It’ll be good receiving practice for me too,” Iwaizumi had grumbled the second part – he never really liked receiving practice but after watching some competitive matches with Oikawa, he realized just how crucial a good receive was.

Oikawa smiled brightly at his friend, glad that they’d stuck to playing volleyball together. When he practiced with Iwaizumi, it felt like there was only the two of them; connecting the ball back and forth between them as their own two-man team. Oikawa would serve, Iwaizumi receiving it back for him to set Iwaizumi’s favourite toss for a clean spike.

Oikawa often found himself wishing he could stay in these carefree days forever.


	4. Ending on separate fic

Hi Darlings!

Just an update for those of you subscribed/bookmarked, the 'ending' to this fic has been published on another title. You can find it if you just click the next part in the series this fic is under.

I currently have no motivation to write more for this series for now and the whole reason I started this fic was because of the climax/ending so I just went ahead and wrote that anyway.

You probably won't miss much even if you read it, other than the other supernatural creatures I was meant to reveal as other teams were introduced.

Anyway hope you guys had a good Christmas and have a happy new year!

**Author's Note:**

> 及川 (oikawa) - reaching the river  
> 徹 (tooru) - to go through  
> 流動 (ryudo) - flow  
> 下流 (karyu) - downstream
> 
> yea i know i'm lame. I randomly picked his mum's name using my friend's name just cause hers didn't really need to 'fit' since she'd have married into the oikawa name anyway.


End file.
